page_title: John Pascoe Fawkner
section_title: Settlement of Melbourne
hierarchical_section_title: John Pascoe Fawkner / Settlement of Melbourne
caption_attribution_description: English: A watercolour painting of the topsail schooner, Enterprize, at the founding of Melbourne in August 1835. The author and date of creation are unknown but a replica was published in Harper's Weekly (New York) vol. 29, no. 1498; 5 September 1885 p. 580.
context_page_description: John Pascoe Fawkner was an early Australian pioneer, businessman and politician of Melbourne, Australia. In 1835 he financed a party of free settlers from Van Diemen's Land, to sail to the mainland in his ship, Enterprize. Fawkner's party sailed to Port Phillip and up the Yarra River to found a settlement which became the city of Melbourne.
context_section_description: Fawkner became increasingly frustrated with a coercive and restrictive government, focused on controlling the convict population, with free settlers and the contribution they could make, an afterthought: 
  "It was to get rid of these evils as well as the Tyranny of Gov Arthur, and in hopes to open out a wide field of energy and in this Immense scope of Country lying between Bass Straits and Port Jackson, that tempted me to cast about to find some few countrymen to accompany me and assist to open up these fresh fields and pastures new. Free Laws for free men, on Freeholds, where land was plentiful and a wide choice, unburthened either with A Felon coerced population or a Govr with power to enact laws fitted only for the desperate and doubly convicted criminals that pervaded."
  Reading of reports back from the Hentys at Portland and Charles Sturts journeys further north and the good country to be found, encouraged Fawkner's resolve to head to Port Phillip and search for a suitable settlement site. 
  In April 1835, he purchased the topsail schooner, Enterprize.
  John Batman led an exploring party to Port Phillip District in May 1835, on board the schooner Rebecca. He explored a large area in what is now the northern suburbs of Melbourne, as far north as Keilor, and saw it as ideal country for a sheep run, before returning to Launceston.
  When the Enterprize was ready to leave in August 1835, at the last moment creditors prevented Fawkner from joining the voyage. On board the Enterprize as it departed George Town, were Captain John Lancey, Master Mariner (Fawkner's representative); George Evans, builder; William Jackson and Robert Marr, carpenters; Evan Evans, servant to George Evans; and Fawkner's servants, Charles Wyse, ploughman, Thomas Morgan, general servant, James Gilbert, blacksmith and his pregnant wife, Mary, under Captain Peter Hunter.
  On 15 August 1835, Enterprize entered the Yarra River. After being hauled upstream, she moored at the foot of the present day William Street. On 30 August 1835 the settlers disembarked to build their store and clear land to grow vegetables. 
  The Fawkners arrived in the Port Phillip District, on Friday, 16 October 1835, on the second trip of the Enterprize. Fawkner's diary reads: 'Warped up to the Basin, landed 2 cows, 2 calves and the 2 horses.'
  Only days later, these diary entries illustrate the energy and purpose he brought to Port Phillip.
  On the 20th of October he wrote: “My birthday this day I complete my 43 year – time too precious to be idle – employed battening the roof of house”.
   “We set to work and in one month from the day of landing at Melbourne, I had a four roomed weather boarded house completely floored with deal boards, with pannel doors, and glazed windows ready and fit for use. Having no Bricklayer with us I in conjunction with my blacksmith as laborer built a good brick chimney”.
  Once a house was built, on to provisioning the colony - in November: 
  “Commenced ploughing for a garden near the falls on the South side of the Yarra. found the leg of an iron pot about 8 inches below the surface – think it was left there by the runaway man from Point Nepean in 1803 who returned and described the Yarra his name was Dd G. Planted potatoes, set out beans and peas, sowed radishes and cabbage seeds”.
  Fawkner was active in the first land sales in Melbourne. On 1 June 1837 he bought the No 1 Block corner of Bourke and William Street for [£32], and another on the corner of Market and Flinders streets. His early home (built on the Bourke Street site) appears in this work by Robert Russell, taken from the south side of the Yarra River, from the Falls, near the present day Queen Street.
caption: The Enterprize, Fawkner's ship. State Library Victoria, Melbourne, Australia. H36536
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